Responsa by R. Jacob Saul Elyashar, Sephardi chief rabbi of Erez Israel (rishon le-Zion). A grandson of R. Jacob ben Hayyim Elyashar, he was born in Safed. His father, a dayyan, shohet, and cantor there, was arrested by the Turkish authorities, but succeeded in escaping and settled with his family in Jerusalem. When R. Jacob Saul was seven, he lost his father, and his mother remarried in 1828. His stepfather, R. Benjamin Mordecai Navon, became his teacher and supported him for many years. R. Elyashar married the daughter of hakham bashi, R. Raphael Meir Panigel. He was appointed a dayyan in Jerusalem in 1853, and in 1869 head of the bet din. He succeeded his father-in-law as hakham bashi and rishon le-Zion in 1893.

A cultured scholar and a fluent linguist, R. Elyashar wrote thousands of responsa in answer to questions from both Ashkenazim and Sephardim all over the world. He was respected by the authorities and the heads of other religious communities, and received orders of merit from the Turkish sultan, Abdul Hamid, in 1893, and the German kaiser, William II, in 1898. He was accepted by both the Sephardi and Ashkenazi communities and worked hard to put religious institutions in Jerusalem on a solid foundation. The affection in which he was held is reflected in the fact that he was referred to as “Yissa Berakhah” (“conferring a blessing”), the word Yissa (ישא) being derived from the Hebrew initials of his name. He enjoyed marked success as an emissary to Smyrna (1845), Damascus (1854), Alexandria (1856), and Leghorn (1873).

In 1888 when a controversy arose as to the permissibility of working on the land during the following year, a sabbatical year, R. Elyashar decided that such work could be permitted by selling the land formally to a non-Jew, but suggested that each Jewish agricultural settlement leave a small portion of land uncultivated as a symbol and reminder of the commandment. R. Elyashar died in Jerusalem, where the Givat Sha'ul district is named after him.